The couches!

I am so thrilled!!

You know how sometimes you picture how things will look, then after some time you forget and then doubt yourself. Well I was worried that the new couches wouldn't look good. I shouldn't have worried as they look even better than I expected.

The material colour blends so well with the blue of the bookshelves and the blue above the fireplace. Here is a close up of the fabric. It is called navy but has a woven texture.

The comfort level is crazy. They are so easy to sit on and firm enough that you can still get out with ease. Will be great for my Mum when she comes. The kids love lying on them and they are so big that even Dave can lie down and still have some feet space.

The rug is pretty standard, but again looks great in the room. The kids said they liked how it felt kinda bumpy under their socks. I don't even fancy putting cushions on them I kinda like them plain, but we will see.

Oh and here you can see the finished drawers and handles on the built in TV unit.

So happy I found these couches. If anyone is interested, they are called Grand Lodge by Freedom.

Cheers,
Nat

My drawer handles are installed

I feel so bad for Dave. He thought that installing the drawers handles (all 14 of them) would be simple and take him only 1 hour. Instead, once he looked at the drawers, he realised that there was an issue. I wanted the handles at the top of the drawers, however this meant that they would hit the drawer carcass on the other side. So he had to take off every drawer front, drill the holes, counter sink the screws, attach the handle then reattach the drawer front to the carcass. So more like a 3 hour job.

But by the end of Saturday morning they were all done. I think they look marvellous and just like I imagined.

I will take a more distant photo once the room is set up. Because, tomorrow, the new rug and couches are being delivered. Woo hoo!

Cheers,
Nat

Only one dining chair

We have a new edition to the furniture family.

Please give a warm welcome to Mr Chair! Not the same Mr Chair as in The Goldbergs but our own version.

We had to find a dining chair that had a high seat as the new dining table Dave made is higher than most. So after a lot of web surfing (and even considering buying a stool and cutting it down) I found this on Ebay of all places.

Best part it was only $139 delivered. And it came in a few days. This will be Dave's chair I think. He fits in perfectly.

Oh yeah and the tree is up and lights are on the house.

Cheers,

Nat

New living room rug

Hooray for the Black Friday sales.

I have had my eye on a extra large Jute rug at Freedom for a few weeks now. I need a larger rug to go under the new couches in the living area and it is hard to get a large enough one.

I have ordered the Madras Jute rug 250 x 350 cm from Freedom.

 As you can see, it is normally $549 RRP. As a MyFreedom member I always get a 15% discount anyway. So with the sales taking off 30% and the my 15% member discount and then I had a $50 birthday voucher, it came down to $306.85.

Got to be happy with that. Also I asked if they could add it on to my couch delivery and they didn't even charge me any extra delivery fee. Woo hoo!!

Now as I haven't seen it in person, I just hope it goes ok with our couches.

The couches and rug should come the first week in December. Not long to wait now.

Cheers,
Nat

Building our dining table

Have I told you how amazing my Husbands is lately??

This man..... he is brilliant.

Yesterday he made me this dining table. The top is made from recycled Messmate fro Urban Salvage and the bottom is a mix of messmate, blackbutt and another hardwood. Total cost was about $550.

Saturday morning he prepared the table top and glued and clamped it together to set.

On Sunday afternoon he began with the legs.

 

The timber was so hard that sometimes the nail gun failed to get through it, so we need to pull these out when it has all set in place.

 

This is the start of the first leg (minus the feet).

 

Then we brought them inside ready to assemble.

 

After a bit of pulling all into square, we clamped it and screwed it together.

 

So now we need to wait til the glue dries before we can sand it and seal it. But how beautiful does it look? I can't stop looking at it.

The previous weekend he put together most of the new coffee table. Again using recycled messmate timber. Here is one set of legs being glued and clamped.

 

 Then putting it together....

 

I don't have a proper after shot yet because he hasn't put the shelf underneath it yet and still needs to be sanded and sealed. My dorky kids loved being silly in the photo.

So next is the built in bench seat and the free standing bench seat. We are on a roll.

In other works.... I am almost done with painting the staircase. Just 1 more top coat to go. Then I need to organise a carpet layer to lay the runner (or I might do it myself).

Cheers,
Nat

Cabinetry installation day

Such a long awaited and exciting day today. Cabinet day!

At 7:30am this morning the boys from Wattle Valley Kitchens rocked up ready to install. And install they did! What great work and so professional and tidy.

Let's just get to the pictures shall we?

Here are the drawers for the fireplace seating going in.

Here they are in. I have plans to make two of these filing drawers. Just need to tell Hubby how I want it done and watch the magic happen.

Of course, I still need to paint them and put on some handles.

Then came the laundry:

So we need to decide on a splashback here. Oh my favourite part is the hamper drawers.

Upstairs they installed the drawers in Sammy's wardrobe (by the way they all have soft close hinges even though I asked for normal ones).

Finally, today they installed the wardrobe in Andrew's bedroom.

So happy it is all in place. Not looking forward to painting it all but I just have to remember how much money I am saving by painting them myself.

Only problem, is that the laundry upper cabinets didn't extend all the way to the dryer, so they are making up another cabinet to go in that spot.

I also, am trying to pick handles. That is tougher than you'd think.

They measured up for the drawers and doors under the TV cabinet but not sure when they will be done.

Cheers,
Nat

New couches

How nice is it to have our weekends back! Problem is, it doesn't give me much to blog about. We actually found ourselves feeling lost and not knowing what to do. As soon as I sat down to watch some footy, I felt guilty that I should be doing something on the house. It was a strange feeling.

On Saturday morning we went couch shopping.

In fact, last weekend we visited Pottery Barn and feel in love with a couch there called the Pearce sectional in Silver.

So it was an L-shaped couch and had lots of space and lovely material and very comfy. Here is the picture from their website.

 

However the price was the scary part. It was retailing at $6354. Holy Moly. Imagine if the kids split something or the future dog ripped it. Eeek! Then a few days later, Pottery Barn advertised a 20% off sale. Taking it down  to around $5084. Still lots of money but a bit better.

Then I did some research online and came up with this problem.

Honey we're home

She showed her Pearce sectional and how the back cushions get mushed up and apparently only after a few months. Well..... this changed things. This would drive me crazy!!! And when you spend that much money you don't want to regret it.

So, we did a bit of looking online and in-store. I quite liked the Plush Sofas. My brother in law just ordered a Colt sectional as they have a 50% off sale at the moment. I really liked it but wasn't completely sold.

Then we ventured to Freedom at DFO in Essendon on Saturday. I currently have a Freedom sofa that Dad bought for me for my 21st Birthday (so about 17 years old now)...

Old Freedom couch.

...and it still is in great condition. The current trend in sofas is mid-century modern, which really isn't our thing. We had a very helpful sales lady called Sabrina and after describing our space to her she helped us realised that we would be better off getting two plain 3 seater sofas. We were about to try looking in the other shops at DFO when I spied this beauty out of the corner of my eye.

2 seater Grand Lodge at the top and 3 seater Grand Lodge at the bottom. Freedom Furniture.

The name is the Grand Lodge (I also loved the name as it kinda matched my style). Then... I sat on it. O.M.G. It was the most comfy thing ever!!!!  The back is a bit higher than the rest so it supports your neck and head. The seat isn't too deep, so you don't feel like you have to lean back. And the seat cushion was such that it supported your bum and lower back. It has nice wide and strong arms. And for a 3 seaters, it actually have 3 cushions (I don't like 3 seaters that only look like they have 2 seats, like my current couch does). It only comes in 3 fabrics (but also in leather.. mmmm nice) and we are getting it in a colour called "Colt Navy" which if you can imagine would be a light grey-bluish version of the one pictured.

Here it is on the webpage.

Grand Lodge 3 seat sofa- Freedom

The price is RRP $1899 but if you join the My Freedom club you get it for $1614.15. So we got two and they will be made overseas and be here in 8 weeks. If any sales appear during that 8 weeks, we can get the price adjusted, so fingers crossed that there is a big sale.

So that is kind of exciting and cool.

ETA: It did come on sale and we got it for $1329.05 (but did delay it by 2 weeks. Oh well)

As for the old couch, that will go upstairs in the kids playroom and be used for sleepovers as it is pretty big once you take off the back cushions.

Hope everyone has a great week and Go Bulldogs!

Cheers,
Nat

Final Inspection

When we last left off, I mentioned that we were about to have the final building inspection. The good news is that we passed. So officially we are done!!

Since this news, we have really taken it easy and haven't done a thing on the house. Even went for a day trip with the kids on Saturday for the first time in ages. It has been so nice and we are feeling so relaxed.

We started to tidy up the garden on Sunday because the weather was amazing. I pruned all the roses and we cleared the front porch. I do need to get a new doormat now as the old one is filter with years of building dust in it.

Speaking of doormats.... I picked up this cutie today for inside the laundry door.

 

We still need to wait for the cabinetry (they are saying November now) but we are delaying the kitchen cabinets until we save up some money to replace all the doors at the same time.

Cheers,

Nat

 

Return of the kitchen benchtop

Hello, it is going to be another warm day today, albeit very windy. Good for washing the dust off the winter blankets.

So, last post I mentioned that we put the kitchen benchtop back on. Here she is:

You have no idea how brilliant it is to have work space again. That old door was just impossible to keep clean, let alone cut anything on.

When we redo the kitchen, this benchtop will be made smaller, because you can see that it is too long the get past on each side. So we will lose 2 stools but by that time we will have a dining table (hopefully).

The plan is still to get the final inspection done on Monday. I have chased up all the compliance certificates and they are ready to show.

It seems so long ago that we were chasing up the startup paperwork. So much better to be doing the final paperwork!!!!

Cheers,
Nat

Step and landing

Firstly... how beautiful was it in Melbourne yesterday; and again today. It really feels like Spring will be here soon.

We did a few things to the house on the weekend. One thing was that Dave built the landing and step for outside the laundry door.

Landing outside the laundry door

Painted the frame black to stop rot

Almost done. Just need to put on some plinths.

Luckily we had enough decking boards left over so this was a cheap addition.

This had to be done in order to pass the inspection. Speaking of inspection, I overheard David say that he hopes this can get done this week!! That would be the final inspection and our house is officially done in the eyes of the council. Cue flashback...

Where were we 3 years ago? Well we were up fed up with all the paperwork. We were about to hand in the papers to apply for the owner builder permit.

So happy we are not back at that stage, but also it was so exciting back then.

Cheers,
Nat

Floors finished!!! And dryer venting.

Holy moly!  It feels like a totally new house now.

Last week we moved out of our place for 3 nights whilst the floors got sanded and polished.

We stayed up the road in some cute cabins at a caravan park and I must say, I enjoyed it more than I should have. It felt like a mini holiday even though we were still going to work and school and were 5 mins away from our house.

Enjoying top bunk

School work in bed with Dad

Cabin with Kitchen

I now have a whole new appreciation for our house. It looks, and feels, so different. There is something about getting the floors done, be it timber, tile or carpet, that completely changes the feel of a space and instantly makes it feel complete.

The only gripe I have is that I asked him to put the darker filler in the nail holes. Even gave him the one that I used. But he used his lighter one and now I can see light spots on the floor, whereas the darker one was pretty much invisible. Still, from a distance they looks great. He did use the dark one in the hallway so that does look amazing! We used Bona Traffic HD in matt finish.

After sanding, before the finish

Finished product

Heidi admiring the new floor

After we moved back in, we did some work on the weekend. Dave finished the installation of the dryer so it now vents outside instead of fogging up the house.

Dryer up and vented

 You can see the plastic vent pipe going through the wall here:

Vented through the wall

 This is the vent on the outside. Still to paint the wood block though.

Dryer vent on the outside of the house.

So it is so wonderful to have a properly functioning laundry now. You have no idea! And also the fact that the clothes line is a few steps away out the door is amazing.

Dave also continued working on the deck by doing the plinth boards around the edges.

Dave cutting the boards

Plinth boards

 I have been getting my paint on lately. I painted the new cornice around the TV unit.

Undercoat

And I have also been prepping and painting the architraves and skirtings in the kitchen and laundry. It is looks so fresh and clean now.

Also on the weekend we went dishwasher shopping. I have been without one for about 3 months or so and gee I have missed it. We used to have an Electrolux Dishlex. It was never that great and the last few years has really been playing up. I did my research and people were all saying that the ones that washed well and were reliable were Bosch, Miele and Asko. We ended up with an Asko as it was a special for $300 off which brought it down the price of the Bosch I wanted. I have used it twice so far and am very impressed. Hoping it will last us 20 years.

Dave installed it and saved us $100.

Only other things happening at the moment are, the building of a step and landing outside the laundry door, and more painting inside.

Oh and I forgot one other thing that we did (with the help of a strong fit neighbour), we moved the stone benchtop back into the kitchen. So instead of having an old door as my work surface, I now have my wonderfully smooth bench back! LOVE!

Now we just need to save money and wait for the cabinetry.

Cheers,
Nat